TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: spoken & written usage From:John Lee Bumgarner <jbumgarner -at- VNET -dot- IBM -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 16 Nov 1994 10:41:32 EST
In response to Romay Jean Sitze 16 Nov 94:
Let me expand and offer a bit more.
Not only would be there cultural borrowing between racial groups
(especially as racial segregation barriers dropped) but also borrowing
between geographic areas as the economy changed and people migrated,
looking for work. Helping to speed the interchange would be the rise in
movement due to improved and expanded transportation and transportation
infrastructures. Along with the improved and expanded transportation
came the expansion and growth of media: television, movies, youth
magazines, etc. Movement, transportation, and media, I would assert,
worked hand in hand to help spread language and aid cultural borrowing.
Lastly, language is often used as an exclusionary and
an inclusionary tool, especially among the young. With your peers, you
can keep out the unwanted with the language (whether peers or other
adults) you use; slang is a good example of language being used to
exclude or include. (Folklorists are looking at these issues, I think,
and might agree but would demand more documentary support; I'm just
theorizing.) So, this language usage, like slang, has spread and been used
to exclude or include, and is now more regularized in regions across
North America.
(HORRORS, we all may soon be talking and writing this
way!)
Would linguists concur with this (these) theory (theories)?
